Card Collectors Pay Dearly for Gum

April 2 -- Remember when baseball card collecting was a little boy's hobby?

It was like a treasure hunt — kids could get a pack of 15 cards for 35 cents (or large packs of 48 cards for 50 cents), hoping to get pictures of some of their favorite baseball heroes. You hoped to avoid getting "doubles" — replicas — of cards; growing up, cards featuring Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron were like gold.

And even if your pack of cards was riddled with doubles, at least you had a consolation prize — a stick of gum whose sweet, sugary scent was unmistakable even if the gum itself was so stale it crumbled inside your mouth.

Ten years ago, baseball cards arguably lost some of their innocence when the baseball card industry removed gum from its packs. Both new and longtime collectors complained that the gum was staining — and sapping the value of their investments.

Guess what, collectors — gum's 10-year exile is over. In recognition of its 50th anniversary in the baseball card business, the Topps Company has brought gum back in a special set of cards it calls its Heritage collection.

"It [gum's return] was based on our 50th anniversary and feelings of nostalgia," Topps spokesman Clay Luraschi said. "For our anniversary, we really wanted to focus on what we did back then, so we decided to bring back the gum and figured a way to do it without damaging the cards."

To prevent staining, manufacturers packaged the gum in cellophane. Still, the gum is only a part of the Heritage set's retro look. When Topps removed gum from its packs in 1991, the old traditional look of its cards also seemed to vanish. As its younger competitors — companies such as Score, Upper Deck and Fleer — began to emphasize action shots of ballplayers, so did Topps. Traditional portraits of players posing in a simple batting stance and headshots became rare.

With Heritage, today's baseball heroes are given retro makeover. Collectors have a chance to see players such as Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds in brushed headshot photos modeled after Topps' 1952 baseball card set.